October 7, 2024

Advocates push Hochul to sign child care bills geared toward modernizing assistance process

“If you’re a part time worker and you get an extra shift, you can’t take it because there’s no way your provider is going to hold a day for you on the possibility you might make it, knowing that if you don’t, they won’t get compensated.”

The third would allow for parents to be presumed eligible for child care assistance while their application is underway if they check certain basic boxes. Lawmakers stress that getting approved is a lengthy process that often coincides with the stress of beginning a new position.

“To have to figure out every day what to do with your child as you start a new job or whatever it may be, this is just a huge burden,” Clark said.

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May 22, 2024

New York’s ‘Mom Squad’ sees victories and challenges in state budget

“A driving force behind the Mom Squad is Assembly Member Sarah Clark. As a member of the Children and Families Committee, she is a staunch advocate for improving the state’s child care system. “There’s a lot we can fix around child care to make it easier for families,” she said. Clark said child care did not receive the spotlight in …

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February 4, 2024

‘Mom Squad’ focuses on mother/child funding, policies in NYS legislature

“We put so much more attention to issues that didn’t always get attention,” said Assemb. Sarah Clark (D-Rochester), a mother of three who unveiled the “Mom Squad” in a tweet in January. “We were again and again just bringing it up. Even when discussing economic development, we raise our hands and say, ‘What about child care?’ We’re bringing issues that haven’t always been in the limelight.”

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February 24, 2022

Expanding Child Care Subsidies Would Lift 84K New Yorkers Out of Poverty, Report Finds

“The bill, introduced in December by State Sen. Jessica Ramos and Assembly Member Sarah Clark, would expand eligibility for fully-subsidized child care to families earning up to 400 percent of the federal poverty line, or $106,000 a year for a four-person household.

If the state implemented the bill’s changes, it would reduce New York’s poverty rate by 2.7 percent and child poverty by 12 percent, according to Robin Hood and Columbia’s analysis.”

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